


We've Been Pushed to the Point of Nearly Breaking in Two

by comicfanperson



Series: JNPR and friends [22]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Anger, Angry Jaune Arc, Angst, Family, Found Family, Gen, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Post-Volume 7 (RWBY), Protectiveness, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25532845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comicfanperson/pseuds/comicfanperson
Summary: No one knows what happened to Oscar Pine.Jaune Arc finds out.
Relationships: Jaune Arc & Lie Ren & Nora Valkyrie, Jaune Arc & Oscar Pine, Jaune Arc & Oscar Pine & Lie Ren & Nora Valkyrie
Series: JNPR and friends [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632898
Comments: 8
Kudos: 91





	We've Been Pushed to the Point of Nearly Breaking in Two

**Author's Note:**

> uhh h h  
> im back from hiatus? lol  
> anyways im really excited to bring yall another RWBY fic and i really hope u like it!!!  
> pls enjoy <3

Jaune was terrified. 

He was shaking. 

Everything was a little blurry. 

The words washed him over like acid.

They echoed in his head like a dark and heavy scream. 

Ren’s breath hitched. Nora squeezed his hand impossibly tight. He watched Blake collapse into Yang. Weiss sharply turned her head away. Ruby was sobbing. Penny looked horrified. Maria was tensed up and cursing to herself while Pietro comforted her silently.

Jaune’s resolve turned ice cold. He knew what he needed to do. 

_“It says ‘deceased.’”_

Jaune didn’t know what happened and quite frankly he didn’t care. At the end of the day, this was Ironwood’s fault. There was no doubt of that. And that meant he was going to murder Ironwood, and he would no doubt be aided by the rest of their family. 

The saying “You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us,” rang especially true here. This was their youngest member, the least experienced, the one with the weight of the whole world on his shoulders, and he’d died carrying that burden alone. 

Jaune wouldn’t let this act of war go unpunished. 

_“It says ‘deceased.’”_

Now they were fighting Grimm in the streets, protecting each other, protecting the defenseless people of Mantle, but they were growing strong together. As they fought, Jaune could only think about their first fight in Mantle. They had been so _blind._ So unaware of what their future held. Things had been good back then, or at least as good as they could’ve been. They were all alive and together, it almost felt like _she_ was there too. Cheering them on, helping them out, keeping an eye on things they couldn’t. 

They had fought so well that first day. He had been so proud of Oscar. Nora and Ren had been safe with him and each other. Oscar had been there, with them. _Safe._

Jaune’s heart felt unbearably heavy as he fought. He felt distracted, shaky and nervous, as though everything was crumbling to bits around him. The sour look on Ren’s face and the seemingly permanent tears in Nora’s eyes were almost too much to handle. 

He needed Pyrrha now. He needed her to protect Ren and Nora. He needed her to tell them if Oscar was really… with her now. 

She was silent. 

_“It says ‘deceased.’”_

James Ironwood stood right in front of them. He looked deranged. His eyes had a lack of emotion, empathy or even basic anger that unnerved him the most that Jaune didn’t think was possible. Jaune didn’t care. 

Nora let out a low, guttural scream of fury and anguish and ran at him with her hammer.

Ren was swift and silent as he followed Nora, as sure and sharp-eyed as a hawk, but Jaune could see all of the emotion in his body language. 

James was quick to fight back, but he was clumsy and slow from everything that had happened in the last 24 hours alone. Jaune watched with dark, narrowed eyes, trying to ignore the delight he took in Nora hitting him with that giant hunk of metal. 

“Why?” Ren spat as he maneuvered Ironwood into a choke hold, “Why did you _kill him?!_ He was just a _child!”_

“He wasn’t a child, he was dangerous, he stopped following what Ozpin _wanted-”_

Jaune wanted to watch the light die out of Ironwood’s eyes as he sunk Crocea Mors into the tin man’s guts. 

_“It says ‘deceased.’”_

So many thoughts were racing through Jaune’s head. This man is the reason that Oscar died. This man is the reason people in Mantle were suffering. This man is the reason that people all over Remnant would be trying to kill them now. 

The bubbling, crackling fury in Jaune’s veins threatened to overtake him. Crocea Mors was raised over the General’s restrained form, quivering in Jaune’s hands as pure anger wracked through his body right up to his arms. A thousand thoughts raced through Jaune’s mind. This was the moment that it all would end. 

He didn't know what happened, but a calm warmth came over him, the blood rushing in his ears almost sounded like a gentle whisper. There was a gentle embrace. Jaune closed his eyes and soaked it all in. Crocea Mors clattered to the floor. 

“Did you feel that?” Ren whispered.  
  
“Yeah,” Nora replied sadly. 

“She wants us to wait,” Jaune said, “It's not time.”  
  


Nora looked torn as she glanced down at Ironwood’s confused and struggling face, “But why?”

“I don’t know, but we have to listen to her,” Jaune said with a certain finality. 

Ren whacked the general so hard on the brow he was rendered unconscious. 

_“It says ‘deceased.’”_

“Why didn’t you _KILL HIM?!”_ Yang screamed, loud and angry, but with that underlying pain that never seemed to leave her. 

“It wasn’t time,” Ren said firmly. 

“Wasn’t _time?”_ Weiss asked incredulously.

“Ironwood took _everything_ from us,” Blake said tiredly, “And yet… you let him _live.”_

Jaune kept a stoic face, while Nora and Ren gripped his hands tightly. 

“It wasn’t time,” Jaune repeated. 

“Was it Pyrrha?” Ruby asked quietly, eyes downcast framed by deep bags around them. 

JNR shared a look.

“Yes,” Nora answered sharply.

Everyone was quiet. 

_“It says ‘deceased.’”_

Jaune stood on a cliff far from Mistral and Atlas, but the two were still in clear view. He contemplated a lot in this moment, but mostly he wondered why this had gone down the way it had.

He wondered how scared Oscar had felt, or maybe he hadn’t been scared at all. It sounded like Oscar had tried to stop Ironwood, he hoped Oscar had been proud of himself before he died. Jaune was proud of him. 

His heart hurt in a way he hadn’t known since the Fall of Beacon. 

All he wanted was one last hug, one last chance to ruffle the kid’s hair and tell him, _‘good job.’_ Just one more chance to see him smile and laugh despite the situation surrounding them all. Just one more movie, one more training session, one more _one more_ **_one more-_ **

His tears stung on his frozen cheeks. 

Ren rested a hand on his back, Nora wrapped an arm around his. 

“Do you think he knew Ironwood might kill him?” Nora asked in a broken way that had Jaune wincing. 

“Yes,” Ren murmured without hesitation, “But he went anyways, because he’s Oscar Pine. And he’s one of the strongest people we’ve ever known. He cared more about what he could _do_ rather than what might happen to him.”  
  
“I wish I had killed him,” Jaune said abruptly. 

“No, you don’t,” Ren countered, “You never could take Pyrrha being mad.” 

Jaune gave a dry chuckle, “Okay. Fair.” 

“They would’ve gotten along so well together,” Nora said with a sad smile.

“I’d like to think they would already be having fun together if… Well, if Oscar weren’t to move on to the next reincarnation,” Jaune sighed and shook his head. 

“Do we need to go look for them?” Ren pointed out.

Jaune frowned, “I guess so-”

They all jumped when Ruby’s voice came crackling over their comms, loud and excited, but scared and worried all at once.  
 _  
__“GUYS, GUYS HE’S ALIVE! OSCAR IS ALIVE!”_

They ran back towards the ship at a speed they weren’t aware they could have. 

~~_“It says ‘deceased.’”_ ~~

**Author's Note:**

> join the JNPR Fan Club discord server: https://discord.gg/7xSDJtV 
> 
> for more information about where im uploading my writing, visit my tumblr blog https://optimisticfruitcup.tumblr.com/ !


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